Reflections on Life through poetry, essays and photos

Category Archives: Writing

Yesterday I talked about writing the Tin Man poem in my hot tub. Today I showed Forgottenman my originals, scrawled in the drink. He urges that I should show y’all and although at first it seemed pretentious, it occurred to me that I loved looking at original drafts, with corrections, back when we all wrote by hand. So, I’m showing them to you, water drips and all. It actually shows my process pretty well. Line-by-line, making lists of rhyming words, choosing one and working toward it in the next line. Crossing out, moving lines. If you enjoy this, why not show me yours? You can see the finished poem HERE.

When WordPress put us out to dry, turning a deaf ear to our cry not to suspend the Daily Post, I think it disillusioned most. Yet, so many rose to hear our plight that now I labor day and night to fulfill the prompts they host. I fear offending if I don’t post. So though outside the air’s a balm, the flowers lush, the scene all calm, I feel my obligation’s rush. I feel each lined-up prompting’s crush.

Each jostles to be first in line like a regular at opening time. So though outside it’s tropical, and therefore very topical, I cannot feel the scene before me. Sun, trees, water only bore me. Even the palm trees do not sway. No wind rustles them today. And though the prompt is “tropical,” my mind is stuck on “topical.” I must admit that I’m distracted. With prompts, I fear, I’m over-facted!

Here are seven prompt sites that have grown up in answer to WordPress’s abandonment, plus two I’ve been posting on for some time:

https://fivedotoh.com/ Fandango’s prompt today is tropical. This is a well-set-up daily prompt site that is easy to post on. It needs followers. Give it a try. I’d like to see it succeed. It is posted daily, just past midnight Pacific time, so if you like an early start, this is a good prompt site for you.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/ This is a very good daily prompt site run by seven bloggers who were part of the WordPress Daily Prompt community and who wanted to see the daily prompts continue. You’ll recognize many of the names who post there, now.

https://dversepoets.com/ This is another poetry prompt site I love that predated WordPress’s retirement.They post two prompts a week and make use of a Mr. Linky site to link your poems to.

https://ceenphotography.com/ Cee posts a number of prompts, many of them photo prompts, but some that include prompts to be written as well. Hers are the prompts I’ve followed the longest. They are thought-provoking and she has a large following and an easy-to-use linkup page.

If you know of other prompt sites I’ve forgotten or have not yet come across, please list links to them in the comments below.

Since the prompt today is “mentor,” I am going to send you back in time three years to a poem I wrote about mentoring that I have no memory of having written, so even if you were around way back then, perhaps you’ll be ready to read it again as well. Here is the link.

Sometimes, to get to that authentic part of ourselves where poetry resides, we have to illuminate some dark corners.

Let There Be Light

My mind is a growling dog.While I stew and fuss,fulfilling lists,she jumps the screen door,beckoning.Rude me, to turn my backon the only playmatewho wants to playthe same games I doevery day, every hour,because I fear that initialplodding through siltpage after pagein search of the streamof words.

Sometimes boredomyawns so widethat I have to enter it,to wander its inner closetwhere for decadesonly cobwebshave stirred.In some dark cornerwhere I spank the dogor search the bedside table drawersof a lover called out at midnight,I find the river’s source,but thenthe phonerings and I’m offgathering crumbs from a forest path,leaving lost childrenstranded in their own story.

Stray puppies—I collect every one,wild orange funnel flowersand guavawashed in an afternoon kitchenjust before the invasionof five o’clock sunlight.All of them I carry backto hidden placesto rub against each otherand igniteinto the language of this placewhere life goes in,plays dress-up,but emergesnude,like poetry.

If you’ve been following me for four years, you’ve seen this one before. The prompt word today was authentic.

We gather a new world every time as we collect marks in black lines on white paper, and we have the power of each world that we pull around us.

I might have called this poem “Utter Sovereignty,” but I did not, for rulers are sad folks, and lonely.

We are the gatherers and so we draw to us what we need and are never alone. There is nothing we lack for in this storehouse where the shelves hold words, the air is heavy with ideas and the walls are covered by imagination.

We gather words to set them free again. This is the pattern of the world that no one has ever broken.

Everything flying apart, every moment of the day, and all of us gathering it back together again.

This is a rewrite of a poem written four years ago. The prompt word today is imagination.

Work Week

Monday

The day’s become unravelled. The night’s begun to fall,yet I’ve not accomplished anything. I’ve done nothing at all except cooking a curry and writing several drafts of poems still uncompleted–they’re bobbing here like rafts afloat upon my consciousness but have nowhere to go. The words all came so quickly, but their gelling has come slow.They want to group together in concrete communities, but instead they’re fluttering like moths and landing where they please.

Tuesday

I’m a syllable collector, a hoarder of each word without a purpose for them. It’s come to be absurd. Verbs are piled up on shelves, adjectives under foot. The gerunds hang like spiderwebs. I have no place to put The adverbs and the articles. They leak out of my head. When I nudge them into lumpy piles, they hide beneath the bed.I’m going to have a housecleaning of consonants and vowels. Collect them up in buckets and wipe them up with towels.

Wednesday

I’ll sort out all the lovely words. The ones I like, I’ll hoard, then pile the others in tidy stacks and tie them up in cord.I’ll keep the good ones by my desk to sort through when they’re needed.Bad words go in the basement, unsorted and unheeded. Then I’ll have a yard sale of unused words like “pickle” and sell them in unsorted lots—a handful for a nickel. Then perhaps I can make room for words more orderly that come to me in sentences that make more sense to me.

Thursday

My muse is hyperactive, I need to tame her down. Instead of resting close to me, she runs all over town collecting words at random— funky words like “phat”—so when I really need her, I don’t know where she’s at.Then when I am sleeping, she unloads word after worduntil there’s no room left for them. It has become absurd.They’re piling up around me. They’ve reached my nose and ear.I cannot swim my way through them. I’m smothering, I fear.

Friday

That’s why I’m calling poets, every novelist or bardto have a drive-by of my house and stop here at my yard.Bring a bucket and a rake. Take all the words you please,for now they’re raining down like leaves falling from my trees.Just gather them in armloads. I won’t find it queer. Better bring a wheelbarrow if you cannot park near.You do not need to pay for them. Today they’re yours for free.If you don’t help I fear that words will be the end of me!

Saturday

YARD SALETake what you wish. Please do not disturb occupant.

P.S. If you’d like to take any words or phrases or lines from this poem to prompt your own poem, please do. But please, please send your poem as a comment here–or send a link.

Have you a pattern for your life wherein you’ve cut out stress and strife, only allowing perfection? Is every day a new confection— cherry pie and chocolate cake? No rejection? No heartbreak? No erstwhile friends or jealous crazies— your entire life a field of daisies? It must be great, without a doubt, but what have you to write about?